So many reviews! :D Is it wrong that I'm happy you all missed me? I absolutely loved getting reviews from people who have been following this story since about the time I first started it, people who only found out about it recently, and people everywhere in between. To the old faces (and considering how long it's been since I updated, the list has gotten pretty damn long), can I just say how delighted I am that you're still with me, even after all this time? In all seriousness, it both astonishes me and makes me want to cry with a fat dopey smile on my face. Any newbies: I'm equally happy to have you, and I hope you stick around too. :)

As a bribe to keep you all with me even longer, here is the Valentine's Day-themed one-shot that I promised oh-so-long ago. It's kind of ironic since we're closer to Halloween than everyone's favorite Hallmark holiday, but I think irony is an important part in life. Besides, better 8 months late than never, right?

Disclaimer: Well, you guys know the drill by now. You've already heard it twenty times before. I don't own anything.

Prompt Twenty-One: Midnight City by M83

Waiting in a car

Waiting for a ride in the dark

Night city grows

Look and see her eyes, they glow

Sydney had always liked Palm Springs at night. It was never dark here with all the lights, whether they came from neon signs or brightly lit windows. There was no absolute darkness in which monsters could come out and steal you away. The other nice thing was all the noise. Silence may be peaceful, but the distraction of sound tends to drown out unpleasant thoughts. And right now, Sydney had several unpleasant thoughts. Turning back to view Adrian's living room, she found her eyes once against assaulted by the garish decorations he had put up. That, too, was a good form of wiping out unpleasant things.

"It's very...pink," she observed as politely as she could. And so it was. Adrian had recently "found his calling" in what he incorrectly claimed was origami, and had now cut out a string of paper hearts which he had proceeded to put up everywhere, as well as pink confetti scattered across the apartment. Sydney didn't have the heart to point out that he had a lot of vacuuming to do when the night was over.

"I know," Adrian said proudly. He shot a small smile in her direction and she found herself thinking that maybe the slightly overdone Valentine's Day decorations weren't that bad. The only question was whether or not Jill and Eddie would appreciate it. Speaking of those two...

"I can't believe you're willing to leave Jill and Eddie in your apartment alone for three hours," said Sydney, torn between disapproval at the potential irresponsibility of this, and a strange melting sensation in her chest when she thought about how very adorable her friends were. Her newly found romantic side argued that Eddie would never do anything that could harm Jill in any way at all (particularly regarding her reputation), so where else could she possibly be safer?

Adrian crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the counter easily, a stance Sydney noticed he often took when he was trying hard to be casual about something that he very much did not find casual. He said, "It isn't like they can have their little romantic date the school. They're supposed to be siblings. Besides, just because Jailbait is like a little sister doesn't mean I can't be a full supporter in her love life. It's the least I can do for her, all things considered." He didn't elaborate on what the last part was supposed to mean. He didn't need to. Sydney already knew what he meant: he felt guilty for all the suffering Jill had had no choice but to go through as Adrian struggled to deal with his heartbreak.

Sometimes Sydney wondered if Jill still felt it. She would have to be better at blocking Adrian's thoughts than anyone realized if she could ignore the deep sadness that Sydney sometimes saw in Adrian's eyes. Sydney would've tried to comfort him, but it's kind of a tricky thing to do when you're the cause of said heartbreak.

Today, however, had been going quite well and Sydney refused to ruin it with dark thoughts.

Instead, she wondered if she could do the same thing for Zoe. Then she remembered that she and her youngest sister weren't on speaking terms so it didn't really matter if Zoe had someone to spend tonight with or not. More unpleasant thoughts. She turned her gaze back to the street, listening to the cars through the open window.

"Sage," Adrian said, sounding as if he had tried to get her attention multiple times. "Let's get out of here. Jailbait and Castile should be here any minute." Sydney eyed the clock on the wall that Adrian had just put up. It was oversized and red and heart-shaped, but it also told the correct time so Sydney didn't comment. It was almost 10.

"Yeah, I should probably get back to school," she said. She was going to be late, but that was fine by her. Clearly, Adrian was of an entirely different opinion.

"You're going to leave me alone on Valentine's Day?" he demanded, sounded aghast at the very idea. Sydney blinked back at him.

"I assumed you would go to LA," she told him truthfully. "Find some Moroi girls." She didn't bother to mention the fact that she thought she would be the last person Adrian might want to see on this particular day. Nor did she mention how badly it would bother her if he did seek company in someone else, even though she had no reason to be bothered. If Adrian caught onto what she was purposely not saying, he didn't comment on it.

"I have a test tomorrow," he told her. "Better to be roaming the streets until one in the morning and be exhausted for the test than miss it completely."

"That's really...mature of you," Sydney said, oddly pleased. Adrian smiled at her again.

"You sound so surprised," he said almost teasingly. But she wasn't surprised at all, not really.

"Let's just get out of here," was her only reply, echoing his earlier words. She didn't bother to tell him she was staying with him. He had to know that she wouldn't be going back to school the second he asked her not to.

This can't be healthy.

But then Adrian was smiling the amused smile that she had once taken for granted. In that moment she promised herself that she would never again forget how fragile and precious that casual-seeming smile truly was. And when that smile was turned on her, what was healthy and what was not became scarily irrelevant.

As Adrian listened to the scattered conversations in the Chinese restaurant, he wondered whether or not it was a good thing that Sydney couldn't hear all the fellow patrons discuss how cute the two of them were. On one hand, she might freak out and that would be incredibly unfortunate because she seemed so very peaceful right now. Besides, he considered this to be "progress" and he would hate to ruin that. On the other hand, she might...well, Adrian wasn't quite sure, but he was curious to find out. He was also happy to fantasize, which probably destroyed most of the "progress" he told himself he was making. In the end, his worry of Sydney reacting negatively won out, and he didn't say a thing.

Watching her poke at her chow mein with chopsticks was worth his silence. Actually, her company alone was worth most anything. And since it was Valentine's Day, he could pretend that walking around aimless with Sydney while Jailbait and Eddie did god-knows-what in his apartment—although to be honest, they probably weren't do anything Adrian wouldn't do—could be considered a date. Not that he planned on telling her that either.

Adrian smiled to himself at his own sneakiness, even as warnings of the high price he would later pay for his stupidity filled his head. It was true, he knew. He would be alone and depressed in his dark apartment in only a few hours, and it would suck just as badly as it did every time he did something stupid like this, maybe even a little bit worse. But in this moment, a few hours seemed like a very long time, in the most pleasant way imaginable.

"Where to next?" Sydney asked suddenly. Adrian stared out the window thoughtfully. What was next? Suddenly, he felt someone lean over his shoulder and nearly toppled out of the booth.

"There's the street fair." The words were spoken more loudly than necessary, and Adrian cringed slightly. Then his brain processed what this mysterious stranger—a sweet-faced old woman who was wearing hearing aids—had just said. His childish nature reared it's adorable head.

"Street fair?" he repeated. Adrian had never been to a street fair, but he had imagined what one might be like: cotton candy, running around, throwing up previously mentioned cotton candy, winning giant teddy bears...

Who in their right mind would pass up on something like that? He cast a pleading look at Sydney—because if anyone was going to be accused of avoiding anything that involved fun as if it were some fatal disease, it would be Sydney Sage—who stared into the distance for a moment. Adrian figured she was quickly calculating the pros and cons of the situation. Whether he was wrong or right, she consented with a nod.

Victory.

Adrian paused only long enough to pay for the food before sprinting out the door. Once he hit the sidewalk, he remembered that he wasn't quite sure where the street fair was. He tilted his head to the side and waited impatiently. Sydney pushed open the door and stepped beside him. She had a fortune cookie in one hand and a piece of paper in the other.

"Directions," she said, holding up the paper. She handed him the fortune cookie and said, "For you."

Adrian cracked it open and pulled out the little piece of paper.

"'The greatest danger could be your stupidity,'" he read aloud. If he was the superstitious type, Adrian would be alarmed. Sydney chuckled and the sound was made even more beautiful than it usually was because right now, against all odds, she was laughing for him.

"I think a cookie just called you stupid," she said and started walking.

He caught up with her in just a few long strides and asked, "Well, what did yours say?" There was a pause before she spoke that was just long enough for Adrian to wonder if Sydney's aversion to food stretched so far that she would pass up on a fortune cookie.

"'A dream is just a dream'," she quoted, and there was something like wistfulness in her voice. Well. Her fortune cookie had certainly made its opinions clear, just as his had. But Adrian Ivashkov would not be deterred by cosmic messages from a cookie. Nor would he mention his own thoughts on the subject. Yet.

"I like yours a lot better," Adrian told her crossly.

Sydney looked faintly amused.

Much to his disappointment—or so he claimed—Adrian did not vomit up his cotton candy. By all rights, he should have, Sydney thought as she recalled how much he had eaten, although maybe the fact that he didn't was for the better. But try as she might, Sydney was having trouble paying attention to anything but the six words ringing around her head.

A dream is just a dream.

Sydney generally put enough stock in the Alchemist beliefs to ignore all other superstitions, but when she had cracked open her cookie and read the small printed words on the slip of paper inside, she couldn't deny the strange feeling that pulsed through her. It just made so much sense. After all, Sydney had a lot of dreams, none of which seemed at all possible. Maybe this was a warning of some kind. Divine intervention perhaps, a message that she needed to remember that some dreams were exactly that and never meant to be a reality. A reminder that no matter how much she wanted this night to last forever, all good things ended eventually.

Admittedly, it took some work staying so pessimistic while the world around her seemed so transcendent. And Adrian also posed a pleasant potential distraction. But if everything she was living now was part of her wildest dreams...

Or maybe the fortune cookie was just a slip of paper on which a generic sentence had been typed out and it was sheer coincidence that she had received it. Sydney took a split second to decide which she was going to choose to believe.

It wasn't a hard decision to make.

She let her gaze slide to Adrian who was currently licking the last bits of cotton candy off of his fingers, staring off absently at the city life that continued to move along endlessly in front of them. Suddenly, he turned and met her eyes, a strange look on his face. It froze her in place. Because she knew without knowing that something was about to happen, something just as surreal as the night around them. She thought she just might be ready for it.

"Hey, Sage?" he said slowly, and she wished her heart wouldn't beat so quickly. "Do you ever wonder if—"

Several sounds like gunshots exploded into the night, followed by shouts and screams and delighted laughter. Sydney yelped and ducked into the warmth and safety that her subconscious promised her Adrian would provide, but paused when she felt the rumbling of contained laughter in his chest. He kept one arm around her shoulders even as she shifted into a more comfortable position. Sydney did her best to pretend she didn't notice that he hadn't let go of her, just as he obviously pretended to not notice that she hadn't put any distance between them. If anything, she had ended up pushing herself closer.

In an effort to ignore the entire situation, Sydney looked up to the sky that Adrian had already been studying. What she saw caused her breath to catch slightly as she was swept into a wave of awe.

Any darkness that the city lights did not wipe out had vanished, replaced by fireworks.

"It's midnight!" someone shouted just as another one flew up with a sharp whistle, once again shattering the blackness of the sky several seconds later into what looked like two tangled hearts. Valentine's Day was officially over.

"This," announced Adrian, "has got to be the corniest thing I've ever seen. I wish Jailbait and Castile could see this from my apartment." The criticism was delivered unconvincingly, making Sydney to smile a tiny bit. But his lips brushed her hair gently as he spoke, and she found she had trouble following his words. She nodded instead, listening carefully to his heart beating, positioned right under her ear.

A dream is just a dream.

Maybe when the sun rose, the statement would become true. But a person might make the argument that this magical midnight city was the perfect place for dreams to mix with reality and become something so much bigger, so much better.

Or so Sydney Sage allowed herself to believe.

A/N: I totally had to disregard anything involving Angeline in this chapter, which makes me a little bit sad. Also, I'm pretty sure I threw just about every cliche I could think of into this. So, was it worth the wait? If it wasn't...well, I won't be offended—as long as you don't tell me.